Results for ""internet of things""

Samsung may not have made much of Tizen so far, but sees the little-known OS as being the key to its multi-platform convergence strategy, not Google's Android. The platform, building on MeeGo in partnership with Intel and other OEMs, may not have produced its first commercial Samsung phone, Samsung Electronics CEO J.K. Shin conceded to CNET, but that doesn't mean the company is waning in its enthusiasm for Tizen. In fact, Shin argues, the need - and business case - for Tizen has never been stronger.

It's not quite humans as fleshy batteries, Matrix-style, but Vodafone's latest attempt to coax talktime out of its users is pretty close. The carrier has put together a number of prototype sleeping bags - just in time for festival season - it's calling "Recharge Bags" that convert your body heat while sleeping into electricity for your phone. Eight hours of sleep is good for 24 minutes of talk or 11hrs of standby, though the future could be a phone that recharges simply by sitting in your pocket, and wireless sensors for the Internet of Things that don't require any external power source.

Two of the most successful Kickstarter projects of all time, the Twine internet-of-things gadget and the Pebble e-paper smartwater, will work together, it has been announced. Thanks to cooperation between the two teams, real-world alerts from Twine will be flagged up on the Pebble watch, such as when someone knocks on your door or if your washing machine is leaking.

Qualcomm Atheros has jumped onto the Internet of Things bandwagon with a new chipset, the AR4100P, intended to give your washing machine, lighting and just about anything else a direct line to the web. Adding WiFi 802.11n to the existing AR4100, the new chipset has its own IPv4/IPv6 TCP/IP stack and promises a straightforward and affordable route for manufacturers to get their hardware hooked up to a smart home system.

CIA director David Petraeus (seen here playing Wii golf) is really excited about the idea behind the Internet of things. The thing is most excited about isn't his refrigerator being able to order milk, but the effect that connected appliances and devices will have on "clandestine tradecraft." In other words, he's excited about being able to use these devices to spy on people.

Printable plastic labels could actively monitor food freshness, track vaccine efficacy and eventually warn you when your brakes need replacing, packing low-power intelligence into disposable computers. The culmination of several decades of R&D by ThinFilm Electronics, with some help from Xerox PARC's printed transistors, the multilayer tags combine a year's worth of battery power, sensors and a small display, and will initially be used to show a temperature record of perishable food and medications.

The "Internet of Things" drive, where every electronic device can communicate with each other in a mesh of digital linkery, continues to gather pace, with Texas Instruments unveiling a low-cost embedded WiFi chipset targeting everyday gadgets. The TI SimpleLink Wi-Fi CC3000 is described as a "self-contained 802.11 network processor" that minimizes the effort involved at making consumer, home and office devices internet-aware.

The government in the UK is putting some money behind the Internet of Things project that seeks to help accelerate the connection of things and processes to the internet. Ten firms in the UK were each given £50,000 out of the Technology Strategy Board kitty for working on the project. The money granted is intended to be used to create apps and services needed for the project.

The BBC has developed a WiFi-enabled toy Dalek that can mimic the on-screen actions of the Doctor Who arch-villain, though fans hoping for a living room invasion will be disappointed. The "synchronised Dalek" project, the BBC's R&D team reveals, is a proof-of-concept intended to demonstrate the Universal Control system, a way of getting internet-connected devices to perform specific functions in time with TV shows on-screen.

Google isn't the only company working on the "internet of things," with a Kickstarter project called Twine looking to release compact WiFi-enabled sensors that can get web-dumb devices online. A 2.5-inch square block packing WiFi along with temperature and vibration sensors, Twine uses a simple web app called Spool to piece together routines like sending out an SMS when a certain temperature is passed, or tweeting when your dryer has finished spinning.